


thorns

by pipistrelle



Series: there is a season [7]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:29:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are all you plant mages so..."</p><p>"Thorny?" Briar suggested.</p><p>Daja rolled her eyes. "I was going to say 'bad-tempered'."</p>
            </blockquote>





	thorns

**Author's Note:**

> Just a thing set between "Briar's Book" and "The Circle Opens", chronologically closer to the latter than the former. Based on the prompt "gardening". 
> 
> Also, wow, writing Crane is fun.

Briar blinked and yawned, stretching as he woke. The thatch of Discipline’s roof scratched at the back of his neck; he must have fallen asleep, lulled by the contented hum of the straw that still remembered faintly what it had been like to grow in the ground and love the sun.

 The familiar scolding voice that had woken him drifted up from the garden below. Briar pushed himself onto his elbows so he could peer down at the short, green-clad silhouette of Rosethorn, and the lanky yellow form of Crane beside her. The Air dedicate looked to Briar like a flower out of season, half-wilted in irritation as Rosethorn lectured him.

 “The grapevines are to be weeded by hand, hear? Not by magic,” Rosethorn was saying. She shook her head, cutting off Crane’s protest. “I don’t care how expensive your ingredients are, those powders you use poison the soil and I will not have them in my garden.”

 Crane would not permit himself a scowl, but he furrowed his eyebrows and sniffed in disdain. “They are not _poison_. I am constantly amazed at your affrontery -- to suggest I would use anything blatantly harmful --”

 “You’re not to use anything but your hands,” Rosethorn informed him. “You’re going to get them dirty -- possibly even your habit, too, if things get dire. I only pray Mila will preserve you from the shock.”

 The mental tang of hot metal tickled Briar’s brain as Daja poked her head out of the hatch behind him. “Looks like you’re having fun,” she said as she hauled herself over the edge of the ladder. Without realizing it, Briar had straightened up and rested his chin in his hands, intent on watching the show below as he would be on any streetcorner tumbler or mage-trick.

 _Shush. I want to listen,_ Briar said as Daja climbed up next to him, settling with her back to the stone chimney. _Once we’re on the road to Yanjing she won’t have anyone to sharpen her tongue on but me. This may be the last chance I get to hear someone else suffer._

  _Best enjoy it, then,_ Daja agreed.

 Even from this distance, they could clearly see the flush of rage high on Crane’s cheeks. “My dear Rosethorn,” he said, “if you are suggesting --”

 “Don’t you ‘my dear’ me,” Rosethorn interrupted. “You’re going to weed every day, rain or shine. And you’re going to do it _personally_. No pushing this off on one of your minions -- no, not even Osprey. And don’t forget the fertilizer for --”

 “I have, in the past thirty-six years, had occasion to care for a garden before,” Crane snapped.

 “It’s hard to remember sometimes, watching those novices do all your work in that greenhouse,” Rosethorn snapped back. Crane’s spine stiffened, all the lankiness gone out of him as he succumbed to his wounded pride, but Rosethorn wasn’t finished. “That’s another thing -- you are not to take a single clipping, not so much as a solitary leaf of this garden, into that glass eyesore. I’ll know.”

 That stopped Crane cold. He blinked. “You will not know,” he said. “You cannot communicate with these plants all the way from Yanjing.”

 “I’ll know,” Rosethorn insisted.

  _She can’t do that, can she?_ Daja asked. _Not from Yanjing._

  _Nah. She just likes to keep him guessing, that’s all,_ Briar said absently.

 Crane didn’t seem to be in the mood for guessing. “You are a mage -- of some skill, admittedly -- but not a god,” he was saying firmly. “And I do not subscribe to the superstitious fear of you that affects some of the weaker-minded among our initiates. Now kindly show me what needs to be done, so I can return to my own work. Real work,” he added unnecessarily.

 The pair of them moved further into the garden, stopping to fuss and argue over each new species of growing thing. Briar leaned back against the slope of the roof, tucking his hands behind his head to stare up at the clouds scudding lazily across the sky.

"I don’t understand," Daja said. "I thought she liked him, after the blue pox -- and all that stuff with the barking cough, last year."

“She likes him plenty -- more than half the Water temple, anyway.” Briar said it scornfully, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 “But she’s so nasty to him.”

 “That’s what she likes about him,” said Briar. “He puts on all these airs, and she gets to rip through them to get to the him underneath, where he keeps his sense. You know how she is -- she’s meanest to the ones who can take it. It’s more fun that way.”

 Daja looked at him like he was speaking Kurchali. “Of course. She insults his work and his breeding because it's _fun_. Are all you plant mages so…” she waved a hand, searching for a word.

 “Thorny?” Briar suggested.

 “I was going to say ‘bad-tempered’.”

 Briar shrugged. “Thorns are for protection,” he said. Unconsciously, he rubbed his thumb along the scarred palm where the vine that had given him his name had ripped chunks out of his flesh. “Crane knows it, too. He ain’t afraid of her thorns, and she ain’t afraid of his, so they can both push through to the soft, squishy parts they’re protecting.” He’d spent a lot of time thinking about his teacher’s odd relationship with Crane, and he was rather proud of the explanation he’d come up with.

Daja considered it for a moment, looking thoughtful, then shook her head. “None of you make any sense.”

 “Course you’d say that. You’re metal all through, right? You don’t _have_ any soft, squishy parts.” Briar reached up and pinched her leg. She snorted and slapped his hand away.

 _Come down, you two,_ Sandry called, her mental voice imperious in a way that brooked no argument. _We’ve got to plan Tris and Niko’s going-away party._

 Briar made a face. Daja grinned. “Speaking of soft and squishy,” he grumbled, but followed Daja into the house.


End file.
